Surgical strikes: Ready a long time back, but waited to snuff out as many terrorists, says officer

New Delhi, Oct 10: The surgical strikes carried out by the special forces of the Indian army snuffed the lives out of several terrorists. Although there is no official count of the number of terrorists who died in the operation, unofficial statistics suggest the number may be 38.

It has been reported that the Lashkar-e-Taiba lost at least 20 of its terrorists in the strike. The remaining 18, sources say, were part of the Jaish-e-Mohammad.

When the operation was being planned it was decided that once the forces cross the Line of Control, they must inflict maximum damage. A day after the Uri attack, it was decided that such an operation would be carried out.

Two days after the Uri attack, the Intelligence Bureau signaled to the army that it had picked up chatter which suggested that a big batch of terrorists would be moving closer to the Line of Control. The armed forces wanted the big batch to move in completely before launching this strike, sources also say.

Wait for the big batch

One officer said that there was no point in crossing the Line of Control and just destroying the launch pads. "They would have built new ones immediately. Our intention was to inflict maximum damage and we wanted to snuff out their lives," the officer also pointed out.

An intelligence bureau officer explains, "Terrrorists move closer to the Line of Control before they infiltrate. They are sent in batches of five and each one is told to remain at the launch pad until further orders. The batch that is immediately ready for infiltration would be positioned in a launch pad just 500 to 1,000 metres away from the LoC," the officer also explains.

He further says that when terrorists are preparing to infiltrate in most cases, the Pakistan army provides cover fire. "They begin firing indiscriminately with the intention of distracting the Indian army," he also says.

In this case it was found that the terrorists who were ready to infiltrate had moved into the launch pads which were positioned at a distance of 500 metres to five kilometres from the Line of Control.

It was only when the IB signaled to the Indian army that several terrorists had moved in, was it decided that the operation would be launched. The armed forces inflicted maximum damage on the terrorists who were taken by surprise.

The special forces managed to dodge the Pakistan army as well which was providing cover for these terrorists.